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Top 10 LCD Soundsystem Songs

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 2017 |

Posted by: Peter Hammel

[Photo Credit: Kirsten Spruch]

LCD Soundsystem announced that their newest album, American Dream, will be released September 1st with a corresponding tour of Europe and the United States. In 2011, the band played what they announced as their last show ever. In the past 12 months, frontman James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem have released a few singles and gave a handful of performances, including a current weeklong residency in Brooklyn where I was lucky enough to attend their show Saturday night. In preparation for their latest work, here's a list of their top 10 songs.

10. "Us Vs Them"

Packed with percussion, this track has you chanting a number of its catchy lyrics and beautiful musical moments. You'll lock down the words after one listen, I promise.

9. "American Dream"

A 6/8 ballad and reflection of a night out, the perceived "American Dream." It's a heavy track, powered by a dramatic synth scale and rhythmic low bass. It broadcasts the corruption and desperation of one night stands and perhaps its long term effects.

8. "New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down"

Essentially a poem about Murphy's love-hate relationship with the big apple, "New York" is filled with nonsense and Murphy's relative facetiousness. It waltzes, it rocks, and it eventually explodes.

7. "I Can Change"

"I Can Change" is about the closing of a relationship, the plane going Mayday, and the panic of trying to change oneself quickly. In the end, the track is about love, but I can only picture Murphy smiling after the lines "Love is an open book to a verse of your bad poetry/ And this is coming from me." Also, look out for atmospheric difference in its live, more calm and less panicked version.

6. "Losing My Edge"

This track is the inception of LCD. As Murphy heard and saw other DJs playing the records that Murphy thought only himself played, he recorded his embarrassment and cockily put it as the side A of the first LCD Soundsystem 12".

5. "Dance Yrself Clean"

With a scrambled cowbell, warm synthesizer, and Murphy's distortedly soft vocals, the song's introduction is loose. Three minutes later, an unnecessarily loud synth drop puts listeners in dance heaven in what is likely the band's most popular song to date.

4. "Pow Pow"

"Pow Pow" is a more casual "Losing My Edge." It doesn't have the same conviction as "Edge" because Murphy is on top this time around, but his rants and mumbling walk-the-line between sarcasm and throwing elbows.

3. "Home"

What we thought was going to be the last LCD song to take us home. It's ambiguous, whatever James refers to as "Home," but regardless he's adamant that we "make sure we get home / and stay home." Take note of Murphy's nod to the Talking Heads in the lyric, "No one ever knows what you're talking about / So I guess you're already there."

2. "All My Friends"

It narrates life in such an erudite manner, never done so concisely yet elaborate. It reflects adolescence, tour-life, and regret, or perhaps a lack thereof.

1. "Someone Great"

No one has ever tackled death as a musical concept so elegantly. It's perfect, the life-line wavering bass synth, Murphy's lyrics recalling the moment he found out when Murphy's therapist Dr. George Kamen (who turned Murphy's life around, resulting in the creation of LCD) passed away, the glockenspiel doubled on the melody, it's perfect.